I "lumi" di Milano

[Autom. eng. transl.] The Milanese eighteenth century is characterized by a radical change both in the political-administrative sphere and in the religious, cultural and civil sphere. Propellers of the metamorphosis of Milan were on the one hand the absolutist government of Maria Teresa and Giuseppe II, on the other a series of prominent intellectual figures ranging from Ludovico Muratori to Giuseppe Parini with Pietro Verri and Cesare Beccaria in the center. Among the many "enlightened" reforms of the Habsburgs we note, positively, the administrative ones that allowed the passage from a system based on inequality and on the privilege of the noble classes, on the fragmentation of power and on the articulation of society in bodies and communities, to a social system as a set of individuals, based on merit and the centralization of powers in the hands of the State for the purpose of guaranteeing everyone "public happiness". Instead, the reforms of religious worship and popular theatrics were more problematic. The reform of public cults was a logical consequence of the broader and more radical general reform of the state, which reserved spaces, times, events for all. The government reforms therefore limited the number of parties, pumps and sacred apparatus, but also the events of the confraternity, corporate and neighborhood associations. The intent announced was to restore the cult to greater simplicity. In reality it was to remove the religious cult from the public sphere and reserve it to the private sphere with times, places, performances and people strictly delegated to the religious service. The need to diminish the holidays and the demands of reforming popular participation in sacred and profane feasts inspired the religious-social reformism of both the Church and the enlightened governments. However, the division of the external and internal forum, the first to the State, the second to the Church, led to the marginalization and collapse of the very lively world of popular culture. First of all the Carnival. The social and cultural event of the city became the theater. Bourgeois.